Very Good Tasting Enchiladas (Shredded Beef with Red Sauce)

what's up enchiladas are one of those handmade labor-intensive foods like say lasagna where the potential for it to be great is really really high but it almost never delivers on that promise today i'm going to show you that with just a little bit of extra time and attention you can make a truly exceptional well-balanced pan of melty starchy meat at home to get started i'm gonna need some beef and i'm gonna be braising and shredding this beef later on so the natural choice for me is gonna be chuck roast that's from the shoulder of the cow and it's great for slow cooking because of its tons of intramuscular fat chuck roast always has a large vein of hard fat running right through the middle of it that won't cook down into anything delicious so i'll cut that out and then i'll cut the meat into large rustic chunks like i said we're going to be shredding this later on so there's no need for like perfect beef squares here once i've got these roasts all cut up i'll lightly salt them on both sides from there i'll preheat a 12-inch heavy bottom saute pan in this case i'm using cast iron and i'll drop it down on the stove over high heat once this pan is good and hot i'll give it four to five glugs of neutral oil and then i'll lay in all of my beef to sear it the 12 inch pan should just about hold all of this beef snuggly inside of it but if you don't have a pan this thick or this large i would say you probably want to sear this beef in two batches so that it doesn't steam into a gray soggy mess after three minutes on this first side i'll flip one of these beefs over to see how we're doing and that has some great color on it so i'll flip the rest over and continue to sear this for another four to five minutes after about eight minutes in total of searing you should have a decent spread of roasty golden brown edges and sides no need to go much further than this by the way because we're just looking to develop some extra flavor for the cooking liquid speaking of that i'm gonna move these beefs over to my pressure cooker and top that with a whole box of store-bought chicken stock that's about 950 grams oh yeah there's also going to be some nice useful fondy bits in the cast iron pan so i want to preserve that by dumping off any excessive fat and then adding in a good splash of water over at the sink once the beef is sitting up to its ears in stock like this i'll pop on the lid and cook this on high pressure for 90 minutes if you don't have a pressure cooker that's not a problem just cover the beef with the same amount of liquid and cook it in a 325f oven covered for about three hours 90 minutes later or like 120 minutes later because i let the pressure on this thing release naturally this beef should be cooked until just about shreddable the best way to check that is to grab a chunk of it and give it the old fork test we want it to easily pull apart but we don't want it to be like overcooked and mushy this looks great now i'm going to move the rest of this beef over to a plate to cool down and once everything's out of the liquid i'm going to scoot it off to the side and then grab that cooking liquid to pour it into a high-sided container so that i can more easily lift off the excessive beef fat sitting on top this beefy flavored stock is going to be the base of our enchilada sauce later on so i want to save as much of it as i can some b-fat left on top is okay but try to get most of it because too much of that's going to weigh down the final dish and make it really greasy in total there should be somewhere in the ballpark of one quart or one liter of this liquid left over now i'll set that aside to hang tight with the beef and then i'll grab some aromatic vegetables to bring some life to the beef filling for that i've got a white onion a poblano pepper and about five to six cloves of garlic i'll give the onion somewhere between a medium and small dice i want something that's going to get tender quickly and not stand out textually too much in the final dish in total i need 150 grams of that i'll do the same thing to the poblano again medium small and i really don't want huge chunks smaller is going to melt into the background with the beef a lot more easily 150 grams of poblano and then i'll crush my garlic through the old garlic press or mince it if you don't mess with the press once i've got the onions and garlic all prepped up i'll grab the same 12-inch cast iron i used for the beef sear earlier and then i'll drop it on my stove over medium heat once that's hot i'll hit it with a long squeezer of olive oil then in goes my onion poplano mixture and then all of my garlic i'll hit that with a strong pinch of salt next to help draw out some moisture and i'll give this whole thing a stir to combine i think having some softened aromatic vegetables mixed in with the beef makes for a much more delicious enchilada a lot of times you just get meat and cheese stuffed in there and i've always thought that was kind of a missed opportunity if you think about it the meat sauce and lasagna is always chock full of onions and garlic and that is dope once these aromatics are softened fully and starting to caramelize like this i'll add in all of my cooked beef now over medium heat i'm going to break the beef down in the pan with my spatula to get it nice and shreddy i mean kind of shreddy don't turn it into meat pulp leave a few chunks in there so that we still know that we're eating a nice piece of tender properly cooked beef once the beef is broken down and starting to fry up and take on some color with the onions i'll add in five grams of chili powder five grams of cumin a bunch of cracked black pepper and two grams of dried oregano also add in the juice of one whole lime next i'll jump back in with my spatula and give everything a nice stir to combine and then i'll keep on frying this for another minute or so or until the beef is starting to take on some color and the spices have been well integrated with everything else to finish i'll hit this with a small pinch of salt to make sure everything is properly seasoned i'll stir that in and then i'll take it off heat and move it over to bowl to hang out until it's inch a lot of time now while that beef cools i'm going to make the smoky dark enchilada roja sauce for that i'll grab a heavy bottom pot and warm it up over medium heat once that's hot i'll squirt in three to four tables of olive oil and then i'll add in 75 grams of chili powder and 50 grams of paprika smoked would be ideal but regular sweet paprika is also good now i'll stir that up and let those spices toast up in the pan toasting chili powders before any moisture is added really opens up its aroma flavor compounds in there are going to recombine from the heat and form new flavors that are usually deeper more roasty and earthier than what you get just straight out of the bottle once i'm really vibing the aroma of this smoky raisiny chili powder i'm going to add in about a third of my reserved beef cooking liquid i'll stir that in real quick to get it absorbed just like i would liquid into a roux because if i added everything at once there's a really good chance that these dry powders would clump up once that first bit of liquid is all the way stirred in i'll add in another third and stir that in finally i'll add in most of the rest i'll save maybe 150 grams or so of that to use to thin it out if this sauce gets too gloppy later on once i've got the stock started i'll add in two 225 grams of tomato sauce 15 grams of brown sugar 25 grams of cider vinegar and 5 grams of salt stir that to combine and bring it up to a hard simmer from there i'll reduce the heat to medium low and cook the sauce for 15 to 20 minutes while that cooks let me quickly thank the sponsor of this video geology geology is a nine-time award-winning men's skincare brand that helps you find a simple effective skincare routine the main reason that i trust what they do is that their 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geology.com to take their free skincare quiz and save up to 50 off your first 30 day trial thank you geology 20 minutes later when i check back this sauce is reduced by about 30 percent and it's thickened up quite a bit as this sauce cools off and as we get closer to rolling enchiladas it's going to thicken even more so texturally it should be saucy but still a touch loose like this now i'm going to take it off the heat and give it a quick taste to see how everything actually came together oh dude that is super hot but overall salt is good acid is good and there's just a touch of sweetness to accentuate the chili's fruitiness now two more details we need to dial in here before we build these enchiladas are gonna be cheese and tortillas first let's talk about the cheese i've got a blend of two different cheeses here the first one is a medium sharp cheddar cheese i grated that myself on the largest hold side of my box grater the other cheese in the mix is a pepper jack cheese in total i need 12 ounces or about 350 grams of each cheese and i'll mention that i generally prefer to grate my own cheeses for stuff like this because feather shredded mexican blends at the store melt weird and i think they taste kind of stale once i've got the cheese all grated up i'll get my tortillas situated to heat them up instead of using oil i like to use a little bit of water from the sink that really steams them up when they're in the pan and makes them extremely pliable and super soft once i've got the 12 tortillas that i need for a full pan of enchiladas warmed up plus let's say two or three more in case i rip one it's time to get them all soaked up with sauce for that i'll grab my pot of sauce and also a bowl to land these in things are gonna get messy really quick here so make sure you're all set up okay in goes my first tortilla and then i'll jump into the pot with tongs to keep all that sauce off my little fingies for whatever reason the first few tortillas always seem to glom onto the most sauce that's not a big deal if it looks heavy don't sweat most of it's going to be absorbed or slide off when we roll these up now i'm going to run the rest of these tortillas through the bath like this and once i've got all of them stacked up in the bowl it's time to roll them out first i'll preheat my oven to 375f 190c and also grab a baking dish i'll link to this specific one below if you want something exactly like mine but if you have a pyrex or anything like it that would do too one last thing i need to do before rolling these up is to sauce the bottom of this pan so the tortillas don't stick now lay in about a cups worth and make sure that spread from edge to edge to fill these tortillas i'm going to grab about three to four ounces of the shredded meat and pinch it into a little line just like when you were a broke 20 year old and you rolled your own cigs to be cool don't smoke you guys behind the meat i'm gonna add in a healthy pinch of the blended grated cheeses and then i'll roll it up to be as tight as i can get it if a little meter cheese falls out no worry there just tuck it back in to keep things nice and tight now i'll move this over to my baking dish and then i'll follow with the other 11. as you can see i've got eight enchies on one side here and then two by two on the other side make sure they're sitting tight with the tortilla seam tucked nicely underneath to finish i'll add five to six delves of the sauce right on top and then i'll give that an even spread to make sure that it's coated all over that looks great finally before i bake this thing i need to add on the rest of my cheese yes this is a pretty liberal amount of cheese on top here but it's not insane by any measure i really wouldn't go harder than this because it would end up getting pretty greasy okay now it's time to bake this so i'm going to load this dish into my 375f oven to bake it for 25 minutes quickly while that bakes i'm going to whip up a little lime crema to top this with for that i'll combine 200 grams of sour cream 50 grams of milk or heavy cream then the zest of a whole lime and the juice of half of that lime i'll stir it all together until the sour cream is nice and smooth and oh yeah a little bit of salt in there is also nice as well i'll stir that and then move the whole thing over to a little squeezer if you've got it on hand this crema is going to bring a really fresh brightness to the final dish that a mexican casserole just can't have on its own after 25 minutes of big time it's time to pull this little bb out i mean it kind of looks like a taco bell mexican pizza on top and that's not a bad thing at all the cheese is perfectly melted it's not greasy and i can tell from just looking at this that it's not soupy and it's gonna be great now when i left these out of the pan you can actually hear lauren's genuine reaction to how they look [Music] i agree these are worth getting excited for clearly i'll finish this with a creative zigzag of that lime crema and there we go you guys that looks pretty nice considering it's a pile of meat melted cheese and sour cream the combo of shredded beef dark smoky enchilada sauce and that very deeply corn flavored tortilla all come together into something that is really quite special i think the next time you have friends over you should definitely make them a nice pan of enchiladas they're easy to make they're fun to eat and honestly so freaking delicious who doesn't want this let's eat this thing [Music]

Channel: Brian Lagerstrom

Views: 711,290

Keywords: Enchiladas, enchilada recipe, mexican food, red enchiladas, red sauce recipe, tex mex, beef enchiladas, enchiladas rojas, shredded beef, how to make enchiladas, roja sauce, best enchilada recipe, best enchiladas, shredded beef enchiladas, brian lagerstrom, weeds and sardines, homemade enchiladas, homemade enchiladas beef, enchiladas, bake enchiladas, gluten free

Id: WhSKcugq18A

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 02 2022